Post by Accurus on Aug 9, 2008 10:02:49 GMT -5
Hello again folks. Last night I went down to my father's and we listened to both amps and torture tested both. This post will be a combination of my father's own ideas about the amp and my own.
To begin with here are his system specs:
CD Player: Primare CD21
Preamp: Outlaw 990 Processor (Ran in Bypass Mode)
Equalizer: Audio Control C101 Series 3
Amplifier: Anthem Statement P2
Speakers: Magnepan 2.7 (No subs were used)
As you can see his system is no slouch. We began by listening to CDs we were familiar with on his existing Anthem P2. My first impressions of his system is that it sounded lifeless compared to my own. What I mean by that is that the system sounded restrained. It certainly wasn't a lack of dynamics. The amp can put out 550 watts per channel and has a 1800VA power supply. It is in fact bigger and heavier than the XPA2. So it has the goods. However sonically it seemed to me to be missing ambient information. We listened to stuff like Pink Floyd's The Wall and I noticed that the main vocals sounded blended with the rest of the information. They did not have any definition that separated the vocals from the bass drum or guitars. It all sounded homogeneous. Information in the upper reaches of the audio spectrum also appeared to be missing which added to the lifeless character I am describing. Cymbals and guitar did not have that upper registry attack or sound as my father put later as "plucky" as they had sounded before. We also tried a couple of discs like Audio Alchemy and Foreplay. The same sonic signature remained throughout these discs. Then I put in a disc that had an array of my own music on it that I had listened to on my own system as a test discs. The music on this discs includes tracks like Chris Isaack "Blue Moon", Cake "Frank Sinatra", The Killers "All These Things that I have Done", Coldplay "Viva La Vida" and other tracks as well. However these tracks stood out in my listening session and I know them well. Now while these are not the Diana Krall discs that audio reviewers and many other private users use as tester songs I know what these songs sound like and listen to them a couple times a week if not more. The best advice I ever got from an old friend and manager of Definitive Audio was listening to what you know not what sounds good. Good sounding discs will almost always sound good. But you know what your own music sounds like and will be better able to distinguish between the disc and the difference in audio products. Especially when not A/Bing components.
What I heard from the Anthem P2 on these tracks was disappointing compared to my home system. Cake "Frank Sinatra" sounded muddy. The trumpet in this disc is very well pronounced and yet the Anthem was not representing this fact. Again, it sounded homogenized and blended in with everything else. The bass also sounded less defined and in some cases bloated and mono toned. Chris Isaack's "Blue Moon" in concert had lost all the ambient crowd information as they cheered for him and just general ambience of a concert soundtrack. The information was there and playing but it was very subdued and more like background noise than part of the track. The Anthem did not convey the "concert" part of the track well and again exhibited an inability to articulate and define different instruments. Coldplay "Viva La Vida" showed the same issues as the Cake "Frank Sinatra" track. The speakers sounded homogenized and lifeless. The bass sounded like it was not really kicking but simply playing with the rest of the track. The Killers track was a huge disappointment. On my home stereo with the Emotiva it really sounded amazing. This was a defining track in the differences between my Anthem A2 and the Emotiva. On the P2 the track sounded very compressed and the lead vocals were blended into everything else. When the volume was turned up the amp seemed to compress the information but I think this was the sonic signature of the amp rather than running out of steam.
While I was not pleased with the P2's performance my dad said that the modifications on my speakers to the crossover were what were making the difference. While he was impressed with the build quality of the Emotiva gear he wasn't ready to give up his loved P2. So now came the Emotiva's turn.
The Emotiva amp added something brand new. The Magnepans went from being lifeless to having life in them. The amp had the ability on Pink Floyd's The Wall to keep pace and rhythm of the drums. Each drum strike was more defined and articulate. We did however laugh when we ran the XPA out of steam and put the meters into the red line on a couple of really dynamic sections. However this was at some seriously loud levels on a 4 ohm load on a set of inefficient monsters. The 2.7s are 6ft tall 2ft wide by the way and 80% of that is the driver diaphragm area. My discs sounded much better than before. The lifelessness was gone. "Blue Moon" sounded like a concert again and the room filled with audience cheers. Each instrument now had the echo of the concert in it. The biggest track difference that amazed me was The Killers tracks. It had dynamics. Even at 100db everything had separation to it and was well defined. The bass drums kept a good rhythm and the vocals were clear and distinct. The Magnepans - which are not supposed to be good rock speakers - really sounded like dynamics and quick rock speakers. The bass dramatically improved when we played the Cake track. Bass was tighter and had far more definition and resolution to it. As well the trumpets and vocals had more resolution and separation to them. This all added to better imaging as it didn't sound smeared. Then we moved on to Audio Alchemy. Again the Emotiva repeated the same characteristics - more information, instrument separation, rhythm, etc. All of these characteristics were maintained. I was greatly impressed with this material. My father did not seem impressed. While he said that the amp was like the Anthem but different, he didn't feel that it was worth trying keeping around. He noted that the bass did seem different and that he liked it but didn't hear what I was hearing. One track that did make my father think that the Emotiva did have an advantage over the P2 was an track from Foreplay called “The Chant” it has a strong drum attack that was tighter and stronger than the Anthem. As well he also heard the drum decay after the strike that he barely had heard on his Anthem before. However he thought my own impressions were due to speaker modification rather than the Emotiva.
We plugged the Anthem back in and our responses were immediate. I grinned and smiled and he said "damnit" and shook his head. My grin was that my initial impressions of the Anthem were confirmed on a second listen. "Lifeless." The speakers were unlistenable in comparison to the Emotiva. I knew I had an amazing amp in my system. My father's "damnit" was because he knew his Anthem had just been beat. He couldn't believe the difference and it took the switching back after over an hour of listening for him to hear the difference. He than began to confirm my own observations before.
Let me finish this little comparison by saying that the Anthem is not a bad amplifier. Read any review on it and it is an amazing amp. My father had and still has a great loyalty to the Anthem P2. I think this was part of the reason that he was hesitant at first towards the Emotiva. The Anthem is just a great amp and just blew the Acurus A200 he had prior out of the water. When he bought it, it was the best sounding amp we could find for under 5k. It did what the Emotiva did to the Anthem but on amps that cost 5k. I still think the Anthem is a great amp but has nothing on the XPA2. Comparing the two systems with my XPA2 it has become apparent that while some of what I heard was because of the increased wattage of the XPA2 it was not all because of that. The Emotiva seems to have the sonic characteristics of being clear, neutral, and has exceptional resolution. The resolution brings with it not only detail but excellent instrument separation. Is the Emotiva the best amp in the audio world? Well that depends on your criteria. If bang for buck is the basis than yes; this is the best amp in the audio world that I have heard. The fact that it can take on the Anthem P2 and win hands down says something because of the "giant killer" status that the Anthem P2 has gained in the audio world. The Emotiva is truly a wonderful amp and I would recommend it to anyone regardless of price range. My father was so impressed with the XPA2 that he will be picking up an XPA2 and XPA3 for his own system later today.
To begin with here are his system specs:
CD Player: Primare CD21
Preamp: Outlaw 990 Processor (Ran in Bypass Mode)
Equalizer: Audio Control C101 Series 3
Amplifier: Anthem Statement P2
Speakers: Magnepan 2.7 (No subs were used)
As you can see his system is no slouch. We began by listening to CDs we were familiar with on his existing Anthem P2. My first impressions of his system is that it sounded lifeless compared to my own. What I mean by that is that the system sounded restrained. It certainly wasn't a lack of dynamics. The amp can put out 550 watts per channel and has a 1800VA power supply. It is in fact bigger and heavier than the XPA2. So it has the goods. However sonically it seemed to me to be missing ambient information. We listened to stuff like Pink Floyd's The Wall and I noticed that the main vocals sounded blended with the rest of the information. They did not have any definition that separated the vocals from the bass drum or guitars. It all sounded homogeneous. Information in the upper reaches of the audio spectrum also appeared to be missing which added to the lifeless character I am describing. Cymbals and guitar did not have that upper registry attack or sound as my father put later as "plucky" as they had sounded before. We also tried a couple of discs like Audio Alchemy and Foreplay. The same sonic signature remained throughout these discs. Then I put in a disc that had an array of my own music on it that I had listened to on my own system as a test discs. The music on this discs includes tracks like Chris Isaack "Blue Moon", Cake "Frank Sinatra", The Killers "All These Things that I have Done", Coldplay "Viva La Vida" and other tracks as well. However these tracks stood out in my listening session and I know them well. Now while these are not the Diana Krall discs that audio reviewers and many other private users use as tester songs I know what these songs sound like and listen to them a couple times a week if not more. The best advice I ever got from an old friend and manager of Definitive Audio was listening to what you know not what sounds good. Good sounding discs will almost always sound good. But you know what your own music sounds like and will be better able to distinguish between the disc and the difference in audio products. Especially when not A/Bing components.
What I heard from the Anthem P2 on these tracks was disappointing compared to my home system. Cake "Frank Sinatra" sounded muddy. The trumpet in this disc is very well pronounced and yet the Anthem was not representing this fact. Again, it sounded homogenized and blended in with everything else. The bass also sounded less defined and in some cases bloated and mono toned. Chris Isaack's "Blue Moon" in concert had lost all the ambient crowd information as they cheered for him and just general ambience of a concert soundtrack. The information was there and playing but it was very subdued and more like background noise than part of the track. The Anthem did not convey the "concert" part of the track well and again exhibited an inability to articulate and define different instruments. Coldplay "Viva La Vida" showed the same issues as the Cake "Frank Sinatra" track. The speakers sounded homogenized and lifeless. The bass sounded like it was not really kicking but simply playing with the rest of the track. The Killers track was a huge disappointment. On my home stereo with the Emotiva it really sounded amazing. This was a defining track in the differences between my Anthem A2 and the Emotiva. On the P2 the track sounded very compressed and the lead vocals were blended into everything else. When the volume was turned up the amp seemed to compress the information but I think this was the sonic signature of the amp rather than running out of steam.
While I was not pleased with the P2's performance my dad said that the modifications on my speakers to the crossover were what were making the difference. While he was impressed with the build quality of the Emotiva gear he wasn't ready to give up his loved P2. So now came the Emotiva's turn.
The Emotiva amp added something brand new. The Magnepans went from being lifeless to having life in them. The amp had the ability on Pink Floyd's The Wall to keep pace and rhythm of the drums. Each drum strike was more defined and articulate. We did however laugh when we ran the XPA out of steam and put the meters into the red line on a couple of really dynamic sections. However this was at some seriously loud levels on a 4 ohm load on a set of inefficient monsters. The 2.7s are 6ft tall 2ft wide by the way and 80% of that is the driver diaphragm area. My discs sounded much better than before. The lifelessness was gone. "Blue Moon" sounded like a concert again and the room filled with audience cheers. Each instrument now had the echo of the concert in it. The biggest track difference that amazed me was The Killers tracks. It had dynamics. Even at 100db everything had separation to it and was well defined. The bass drums kept a good rhythm and the vocals were clear and distinct. The Magnepans - which are not supposed to be good rock speakers - really sounded like dynamics and quick rock speakers. The bass dramatically improved when we played the Cake track. Bass was tighter and had far more definition and resolution to it. As well the trumpets and vocals had more resolution and separation to them. This all added to better imaging as it didn't sound smeared. Then we moved on to Audio Alchemy. Again the Emotiva repeated the same characteristics - more information, instrument separation, rhythm, etc. All of these characteristics were maintained. I was greatly impressed with this material. My father did not seem impressed. While he said that the amp was like the Anthem but different, he didn't feel that it was worth trying keeping around. He noted that the bass did seem different and that he liked it but didn't hear what I was hearing. One track that did make my father think that the Emotiva did have an advantage over the P2 was an track from Foreplay called “The Chant” it has a strong drum attack that was tighter and stronger than the Anthem. As well he also heard the drum decay after the strike that he barely had heard on his Anthem before. However he thought my own impressions were due to speaker modification rather than the Emotiva.
We plugged the Anthem back in and our responses were immediate. I grinned and smiled and he said "damnit" and shook his head. My grin was that my initial impressions of the Anthem were confirmed on a second listen. "Lifeless." The speakers were unlistenable in comparison to the Emotiva. I knew I had an amazing amp in my system. My father's "damnit" was because he knew his Anthem had just been beat. He couldn't believe the difference and it took the switching back after over an hour of listening for him to hear the difference. He than began to confirm my own observations before.
Let me finish this little comparison by saying that the Anthem is not a bad amplifier. Read any review on it and it is an amazing amp. My father had and still has a great loyalty to the Anthem P2. I think this was part of the reason that he was hesitant at first towards the Emotiva. The Anthem is just a great amp and just blew the Acurus A200 he had prior out of the water. When he bought it, it was the best sounding amp we could find for under 5k. It did what the Emotiva did to the Anthem but on amps that cost 5k. I still think the Anthem is a great amp but has nothing on the XPA2. Comparing the two systems with my XPA2 it has become apparent that while some of what I heard was because of the increased wattage of the XPA2 it was not all because of that. The Emotiva seems to have the sonic characteristics of being clear, neutral, and has exceptional resolution. The resolution brings with it not only detail but excellent instrument separation. Is the Emotiva the best amp in the audio world? Well that depends on your criteria. If bang for buck is the basis than yes; this is the best amp in the audio world that I have heard. The fact that it can take on the Anthem P2 and win hands down says something because of the "giant killer" status that the Anthem P2 has gained in the audio world. The Emotiva is truly a wonderful amp and I would recommend it to anyone regardless of price range. My father was so impressed with the XPA2 that he will be picking up an XPA2 and XPA3 for his own system later today.
